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  • Wednesday afternoon
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Wednesday afternoon

Karlo Mila

my father is “having fun”
cleaning the floor
he uses the plugged-in sink as a bucket
wears rags on his feet
and shimmies to a cleaning beat
he asks me to read the label
on the bottle for him
he wants our floor to shine
and laughs when (surprise)
it does
this is how I will remember him
moonwalking across our kitchen floor
rags under his feet
“that’s how my mother taught me”
he says
“but I never take any note
it takes me forty years to do what she say”


Karlo Mila

from Whetu Moana: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English edited by Albert Wendt, Reina Whaitiri and Robert Sullivan (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003)

Reproduced by kind permission of the author.

Tags:

everyday life fathers housework laughter Tonga

About this poem

This poem, representing Tonga, is part of The Written World – our collaboration with BBC radio to broadcast a poem from every single nation competing in London 2012.

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